It was again these professors who advised the leaders of the coup to establish a special tribunal and try the Democrat Party (DP) government and parliamentarians. Now in the Ergenekon investigation, four rectors and some academics were arrested for being part of efforts to prepare the ground for a military coup. How deeply they were involved in the Ergenekon network will be determined in the trials.
But the names of those that were arrested did not surprise anyone. Those who do not believe in democracy and only seek power will resort to anything to obtain their objective. This applies to anyone, including academics.
Documents, including memoirs, indicate that some universities have been penetrated by the Ergenekon network. In September 2003, university rectors met in Ankara with Gen. Şener Eruygur, the top suspect in the Ergenekon case, who was the chief gendarmerie commander then. A month after this meeting, a public demonstration was organized in Anıtkabir, with the participation of these rectors and their academic staff and students. The rectors that were arrested last week and former Higher Education Board (YÖK) President Kemal Gürüz attended this gathering, where they marched under a banner calling for a direct military coup, "Military, Move In."
Today the common characteristic among the Ergenekon suspects is their refusal to recognize democracy as the final arbiter that decides who will govern. The suspects are also known for their dislike of the West, globalization and modern political values like democracy, human rights and the rule of law.
Those militarist academics believe that they have an inherent right to rule. They do not understand that to be an expert on a topic does not grant someone the right to rule. This is a mandate given by the people. But they despise the people who, according to them, are ignorant, seeking self interest and are prone to being deceived, so their capacity to decide who is to rule is underdeveloped. This is the logic that prevails among the militarist academics.
But as Turkey develops its democratic regime, it becomes obvious that people do not recognize this self-claimed right of the bureaucratic elite. On the contrary, through democracy people get back the power previously held by the bureaucratic elite. Those who lose in the democratic competition tend to engage in activities that would stop this process. This is also the basis of their dislike for the EU and the process of globalization that opens up Turkey to the world and makes it very difficult to return to the "good old days" when the bureaucratic elite reigned.
The militarist academics also think that the country is under an existential threat, is about to be occupied by foreign enemies and politicians are ready to sell it out. Thus they are inclined to look to the military as a savior to justify their collaboration with coup stagers.
Yet, these academics are naïve and, in many cases, ignorant about history, current politics, world affairs, economy, etc., spending their entire life in laboratories. Their knowledge of history, for instance, has been completed with the history books that they read in their elementary and high schools. Some of the more intellectual of them recently added "Those Crazy Turks" to their reading list!
The educated seemed to have lost their belief in democracy. Maybe they have never believed. The new rector of İstanbul University, Yunus Söylet, explained Sunday in an interview with Zaman daily that as the level of education increases, the sympathy for totalitarian regimes increases, too. Can we expect any better from those who are educated in the universities controlled by Ergenekon?
